Fintech company plans expansion in Nashville, West Virginia

A Brentwood-based financial technology company that aims to buck off-shoring trends is looking to more than double in size as it opens an innovation center in West Virginia and grows in the Nashville area.

Newly founded Core10 is absorbing 25 to 30 employees from Synergy Systems to get going. Both companies are based in Brentwood and were founded by Jeff Martin and Core is looking to add around 40 employees in the next 18 months, Martin said this week.

Synergy, an IT staffing and recruiting firm, grew into Core10, which plans to “bring hundreds of technology jobs to America’s heartland with the aim of helping our communities thrive,” according to its website. Core10 will connect technology firms in major metropolitan areas with teams of technology workers in smaller U.S. cities, according to a release. First up is Huntington, West Virginia, where Core10 already has secured 4,000 square feet of office space.

“In urban markets that are hot tech markets, there are too many jobs for the talent in those markets,” Martin (pictured) told the Post. “But the exact opposite is true” in less populated areas, “where you have talent coming out of universities, but that is not where technical software development jobs are. So they have a difficult choice to make: Leave the area they’re from or settle for substantially less technical work than they could accomplish if given the opportunity.”

Huntington is within driving distance of Nashville and home to a university, Marshall, both key criteria when Core10 was selecting an expansion city, Martin said.

Part of the benefit of the Core10 model, Martin said, is eliminating the downsides of off-shoring, including communication and time zone challenges.

Core10 will focus on financial technology, an industry sector that’s seen an influx of venture capital in the last two years, according to Martin. The group’s advisers include Jim McKelvey, a co-founder of payment processing venture Square, and Joe Maxwell, the Nashville-based fintech investor who led Investment Scorecard and Shareholder InSite.

“To say [fintech] is hot is an understatement. Everyone is being affected by this technology,” Martin said, citing changes spurred by companies like Square. “The entire world is changing in that space, and the efficiencies it creates are good for the consumer and good for everybody.”

Lee Farabaugh is a Core10 co-founder with Martin, and serves as COO of the company. She was previously chief experience officer and chief innovation officer at Pointclear Solutions, a health care software developer.

Re-posted from the Nashville Post.